The Extra Works Hard - Chapter 2

The beast was most likely following this train so, the sound didn’t go away. Fortunately, no matter how fast the beast runs, it should be slower than a moving train.

No... The man shook his head to shake off his thoughts. The important thing now wasn’t that there were other beasts. The important thing now was, ‘Why am I here?’. He didn’t have any clues to answer that question or any question for that matter. The man was in a single cabin room attached to the train. There were, in fact, few things a man could do in this moving train.

The first thing he could do was go through the luggage in the room. The man hesitated at first but continued to unpack the suitcase that was supposed to belong to the boy. He felt through all the pockets of his coat as well as the pockets he was wearing. The man was disappointed. The contents didn’t answer a single one of his questions.

A piece of paper that looked like a train ticket. A pouch with money, presumed to be a wallet. An envelope with a letter, a ring with a picture, an old notebook, clothes and household items, etc. It was a modestly packed suitcase. After that disappointing search, a newspaper on the table caught his eyes. Hoping it would be of some help, the man quickly read the newspaper.

The man’s mouth frowned as if he had seen something unusual. The content of the newspaper was beyond his comprehension. What adorned the front page of the newspaper was a picture of a train and a train station quite familiar to the man. But the letters on it were different from what he knew.

“The new station for the magic train, Kennis, has finally been completed. Everyone’s expectations were high as we had been waiting for a long time. Starting this year, students at Aurora Academy will no longer have to travel long distances by horse-drawn carriage! This is really fantastic news for incoming and current students……”

“……”

The newspaper in his hand abruptly fell to the floor. The man didn’t know the name of the train station named Kennis, but he knew of Aurora Academy. It was a school that did not exist in reality. That was the name of the school in the fantasy novel he was reading a while ago!

‘Does this even make sense?!’

The man was enveloped in a dizzy feeling and clutched his head in shock.

Announcements sounded throughout the train. The man seemed to have been knocked out once again. His face turned pale. Amidst the chaos, the train stopped at some point, and the outside door became noisy. People were getting off the train but the man sat on the train for such a long time, all the murmuring eventually stopped.

He rather wished it was a dream. He was going on a trip he was looking forward to and a novel he enjoyed so much it was seeping into his dreams. That had to be it. But even though he wanted to turn away from the fact that all of this was real, he couldn’t.

Everything came to the man vividly. Cold sweat ran down the back. His thin hands were trembling. His heart was beating wildly. His hands and feet were cold.

Rattle. 

Swiiish- bam!

The room door opened with a loud noise. A man who appeared to be a train attendant knocked on a piece of the door.

“Hey, student. Why didn’t you get off?”

The initial language he heard was English or French, but when he listened closely, it was a completely new language. Even more strangely, as soon as he heard those words, he immediately understood. The man got up from his seat. He shuddered at the look of the train attendant’s dissatisfied frown and swept into his bag the items that had been lying on the bed.

“No–I’m leaving now!”

The language he stuttered was the same as that uttered by the attendant. He didn’t notice it before, but now that he thought about it, it wasn’t Korean either. The bag did not close properly as the messy clothes only increased the volume. The attendant standing behind let out an annoyed sigh.

The man was so nervous that his hand was now hovering in the air.

“Great. Do it fast. Judging from that uniform, you look like an Aurora Academy student, am I right? Even if you are late for this, you shouldn’t blame us!”

“Yes, yes!”

Eventually, the bag was forcibly closed and locked. It was quite unsettling to see the seams being pulled tight. It seemed as if the bag would bust open at will at any time. The hem of his clothes was sticking out through the slightly open bag, but there was no time to rearrange. The man hurriedly grabbed ‘his’ bag. As soon as the attendant stepped out of the door, the man rushed out of the cabin.

Tap. Bam. Tap. Bam. 

The man was bewildered at the sound of his shoes and bag resounding in the aisle, but he couldn’t stop. As if he was being chased by something, the man thought he had to quickly get out of here, wherever ‘here’ was.

The aisle was narrow enough for only two people to walk side by side and it was quiet outside the window. The spacious train was already empty, so the appearance of the station was bleak.

As the man got off the train, a loud horn sounded. Soon after, all the doors of the train closed, and the train quickly left the station. The man stood idly until the train left, staring at the train as it moved away.

“……now what?”

The words he uttered unconsciously flowed out in vain as if to represent his feelings. The man staggered and sat down on an empty bench. His loose hair fluttered freely in the wind. The dull red hair fluttering in the wind still felt unfamiliar and it was annoying. His long hair was something he had never seen before in his life, so it was annoying and cumbersome. The man pondered for a moment whether he had anything to hold it, and he remembered the black ribbon he had in his pocket. He pulled out the ribbon, bit it gently to hold it with his lips, and gathered his messy hair together with his empty hands. While doing this, he did not stop thinking.

A little while ago the attendant saw the man and said he looked like an Aurora Academy student. Perhaps his words were reliable information. Didn’t he say that this was the school uniform? And he thought it was reasonable enough given the outward appearance of the boy in the mirror.

‘Let’s say the owner of this body is a student at that school. What then? Does he have to go to the academy?’

The man tied his hair up. He just rolled it up with a ribbon and made a rough-looking knot. Then it became more comfortable since the hair wasn’t obstructing his view. The man looked down at his luggage bag. It was a bit too much for travel luggage. ‘Was the original owner really heading to the academy?’

In this current situation, the man knew nothing. He was just guessing where he should be going. It was also a nonsensical hypothesis, so he thought it would be better to go to the academy for now. If he went there, would anyone know about this boy?

First, he had to know the identity of this boy. The man clasped his hands and opened them. His pale hands were long and slender, with bones distinctly visible. ‘Let’s get out of the station.’ It was clear what he had to do to at least answer some of his questions. The man grabbed the bag next to him. To his surprise, it was so heavy that his entire body staggered. Again the man was thinking ‘this body was weaker than I thought.’

“A-Ah.”

Getting out was fine, but there was one problem. That was a big problem too. Naturally, the man did not know where the academy was. To make matters worse, he didn’t see students around the station. He was like a lone ant without her colony. The bag he was carrying was so heavy that his fingers were turning from red to white. Even if he knew the location of the school, he wouldn’t be able to walk for a long time like this.

The man quickly put down his heavy bag and looked around. How could there be no one here? Should he go back into the station and look for someone? He saw earlier that there were still sparse people in the station…

A small carriage rushing towards the station caught the man’s attention. Seeing the man presumed to be the coachman getting off the carriage, the man rushed to the driver.

“There…!”

“Huh? An Aurora student? What are you still doing here? All the other kids have already gone to school!”

Seeing the student approaching him, the driver was rather surprised.

“I overslept…”

The man hurriedly told the lie. But those words seemed to fit the coachman’s question very well. Perhaps after looking at the languid boy, he earned the coachman’s sympathy. The coachman sighed and got back on the carriage ushering the man inside.